The Sounds Your Car Makes Can Tell You a Lot about What’s Going on Under the Hood. Lately, I haven’t been writing much. But, the stuff I’ve been writing about has been about stuff that I’ve really, really liked. But, every once and a while, I like to write things that are actually useful. You may (or may not) remember my post on “How much is my car worth...

1982 Lancia Zagato takes the place of the little red racer from Atari’s Pole Position I’m back. And, so is TickTickVroom.com. It’s been a while since my last post. I took a bit of time off from the site. But, now I’m back to hunting and pecking on my keyboard with a new take for TTV. This site has been a combo of news, reviews and editorial junk for the past few...

Nothing makes the the evolution of automotive performance more obvious than watching grainy, VHS episodes of the original, old Top Gear, like the ones below from 1992 and 1993. Viewing an afro-coiffed Jeremy Clarkson wax poetically about the virtues of a car from the early 1990s is enough to make you run to your garage and hug your daily driver. On old Top Gear, cars with acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in the 5s (i.e. Mazda...

In August 2012, we told you about the Norfolk, England-based Trident Sports Cars and their Trident Iceni diesel supercar. In that particular post, I extolled the virtues of its rather powerful 6.6-liter turbo-diesel and six-speed automatic gearbox. And, now, the Trident Iceni is officially ready to launch, and it’s coming to the U.S. Trident claims the Iceni is the “the world’s fastest and most fuel...

Does a hatred of running to your local auto parts store to pick up a case of 10W-30 keep you from from being a do-it-yourself-motor-oil-changer? If so, that’s good. Because, Piston King Motor Oil, is banking on it. Piston King is a new brand of synthetic and conventional motor oils that sells exclusively through their online store at PistonKing.com. But, is it actually easier or cheaper (or even equally as easy or...

I’m sure everyone has heard that California-based Tesla Motors and their CEO (and my personal hero) Elon Musk is having a bit of trouble selling their cars in certain states. And, it is complete and utter bullshit. If I could, I would go out and buy a Tesla Model S and park it right in front of the homes of certain governors with a giant sign that calls them weenie-heads or make some other heretofore un-thought-of intelligent...

UPDATE: The 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 has the unbelievable performance we were hoping for. Acceleration from 0 to 60 mph passes in blink at 2.95 seconds. Quarter-mile is even more impressive at 10.95 seconds. These times are for a Z06 with the 8-speed automatic transmission. UPDATE: The 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 “LT4 supercharged 6.2L V-8 engine is SAE-certified at 650 horsepower (485 kW) at 6,400 rpm and 650 lb-ft of...

The Audi Sport Quattro Laserlight Concept has frickin’ laser-beams on its head(lights). I’m sure I’m not the first person to channel Dr. Evil when referring to Audi’s third incarnation of a concept car resurrecting the lauded Audi Sport Quattro. But, seriously, who can resist… the car has the word laser right there in the name. Anyway, last year’s Audi Sport Quattro Concept star feature was a 700...

You can now add Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Mopar, Ram and SRT to the ranks of Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Fiat, Lancia and Maserati. In a $4.35 billion dollar deal announced today, Turin-based Fiat S.p.A. gets the remaining 41.46 percent of Auburn Hills-based Chrysler Group, LLC that they didn’t acquire a few years back. The Chrysler Group, LLC is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fiat S.p.A. Fiat is beginning 2014 with a...

So, not only did we survive December 21st, 2012, we’ve made it all the way through 2013. HA! Take that Mayans! Now that it’s 2014 (2014, weird, isn’t it?), I thought I’d do the most cliché thing blog-ily possible. This is a TickTickVroom.com 2013 Year in Review post. 2013 was a banner year for TTV… a new, fancy-schmancy website, a bunch of cool road and track tests (sooooo much fun) and some...

Back for the holidays is the TickTickVroom.com exclusive Horsepower to Reindeer Power conversion. Of all the methods of transport that exist, it must be argued that Santa Claus’s sleigh and eight flying reindeer rank among the coolest and fastest out there (He does make it around the world in one night including several stops, after all). So, with Christmas and Santa’s annual trek coming up on Wednesday, it got me...

When I told my wife I wanted the 3,152-piece LEGO Star Wars Super Star Destroyer for Christmas, she thought I was nuts. I wonder what she’ll say if I ask for the over 500,000 pieces it takes to build the life-sized, fully drivable, yellow and black LEGO hot-rod that was the brain-child of Steve Sammartine and Raul Oaida. Billed the Super Awesome Micro Project, the LEGO car was built in Romania and shipped to Melbourne...